


Blah blah blah.  You feel trapped in your life.  Here is what I'm hearing: "Happiness isn't worth the inconvenience."

by morallyambiguous



Series: A Softer Young Justice [3]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallyambiguous/pseuds/morallyambiguous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fate is the one who reunites the worlds, and she's left staring at her father, who is devastated, and she's so sorry, but at least he's alive.  At least he's not rotting somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blah blah blah.  You feel trapped in your life.  Here is what I'm hearing: "Happiness isn't worth the inconvenience."

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Quit your job. Buy a big knife. Do something!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/8269) by audi-katia. 



The helmet is all at once terrifying and comforting.  In this empty space her thoughts echo, flying back at her in small waves of feeling and something that isn't quite sound.  She can see the world outside, she watches her body move without her volition, watches her body move under a force that is millenias old, older than the earth itself.  Her body is still hers, but separate, yet she can feel in a way that neither Kaldur nor Wally had described.  To her left, she sees Klarion aim at her.  Her hand comes up and reflex, but the spell she says, isn't one she knows.  It is not the magic of her father or her mother, but older, all at once wild and controlled in the way that she's learned only magic can be.

Outside her body reacts and her magic winds with Fate's as the spell hits Klarion with the force of wrecking ball.  He goes flying and the jewel flies into her hand.  Fate is the one who reunites the worlds, and she's left staring at her father, who is devastated, and she's so  _sorry,_ but at least he's alive.  At least he's not rotting somewhere.  That's what makes this worth it.  She knows she'll never get her body fully back.  Nabu is too stubborn, and ancient, and set in his ways to renege on that promise, but her father is safe, and the world has the League again.

Her father starts to bargain; she can hear him.  And she's not letting this entity, no matter what sort of Lordship he claimed to have, take her father from her.

So she does the most selfish thing she could possibly do.  She puts her arms into the glass that shows the outside world, and pulls her body up into the air, the silver of her own magic slipping through the cracks in the helm's defense.  The effort hurts all the way down to her feet, down, in, and around her soul, and she can't breathe, which is strange because she doesn't need to breathe here.

_Do not meddle with Fate, child._ Nabu is condescending and she is nothing more than a child to him.  But she has something that he wants, so he's going to listen.  He is intrigued at her magic that bypasses his. He will listen, and this is the only chance she has, so she has to make it count.  She calms her mind, pulling a thin veneer of confidence over her wildly raging emotions.

_I'm not,_ she thinks-says.   _My father had his points, he is stronger than I, and more powerful still._ She can almost feel Nabu's patience wearing thin.   _He says that it is a disadvantage that I am still young, but it isn't, or rather, it won't be._ She thinks back to all her performances, helping her father on that Gotham stage, the dozens of recitals where she's performed for upwards of ten dozen people, and of all the plays where she's had to become someone else, and puts forth her most convincing feeling of confidence, so strong that even she almost believes it.   _Think of how strong you'll be with my body, attuned to your magic in particular as I grow older, as I grow stronger, if you can defeat Klarion in my body now, when I am still young and weak.  Think of how an older body, conditioned to the kind of power you possess will be.  My father, however strong he may be will always have his magic fighting for control against yours.  My magic will grow with yours, intertwine with yours.  
_

The area around her shifts and suddenly she's face to face with Nabu, except it's her body, and looking into her own eyes behind the mask feels all kinds of wrong.   Nabu looks at her, tilts her head in a way that's almost human but not human enough for her to be able to keep the shudder from crawling down her spine.  The feeling lasts for what feels like hours, and the skin that she doesn't have in this place begins to crawl.

**_Your arguments are heard, human._** Nabu looks at her with deep unfathomable eyes, that see into places she's not comfortable with anyone, he sees her dark parts and her broken parts and her empty parts, and something must pass Nabu's standards, because she feels a deep burning on her shoulder.  She falls to the ground.  Her father catches her.

**_You, human, are worthy of the title.  You shall bear my mark and when the need for Fate arises, you will be my sword.  You are bound to me now, human, do not forget.  Do not try to find release, that will come only to you in death._** The words echo hollowly in her mind, and the mark on her shoulder burns as her father holds her tight.

If you asked her years later, as she fought through a field of shadows to reach her lover, downed by some sort of reaper-construct, her magic interwining with Fate's in streams of gold and silver as she cleared a path toward long blonde hair, if she regretted it.  She will say one word, "Never."

 

  



End file.
